Animation

Like indie films? Documentaries? Animation? Ho, boy, have I got an app for you: NFB Films lets you watch over a thousand movies on your iPhone. For free.

The "NFB" stands for National Film Board, a kind of Canadian PBS. The app taps the NFB's mammoth library of documentaries, animated films, trailers (for upcoming NFB releases), and more.

All the movies are streamed to your iPhone, but there's also an ingenious "watch later" option that downloads a selected movie for later viewing. However, these downloads expire after 24 hours, not unlike App Store movie … Read more

NewView Graphics' File Viewer is a basic image viewer and photo editor that allows users to make simple changes to their images. Although the program works fine, there are definitely more sophisticated options for doing this sort of work.

The program's interface is dated and plain, and it's not immediately clear how to get started. The fact that we couldn't actually open a file using the File menu threw us a little bit. It turns out that users must navigate to their desired location from the Directory pane within the program; a separate pane displays the contents … Read more

PostSmile is a silly but fun program that allows users to insert emoticons, quotes, and signatures into their e-mail. The program's content is kind of ridiculous, but we really like the way it works.

The program's interface is kind of ingenious. The content--including animated smiley faces, quotes, jokes, and more--is arranged in tabs. Inserting everything into e-mail is a simple matter of dragging and dropping things into the body of the message. Using the program was simple and fun. Whether you'd actually want to use the program's content is another matter entirely. There are five tabs … Read more

MB Chinese Zodiac and Star Signs Software offers up a fast and easy astrological reading. With its simple layout and results that anyone can understand, this is a great way to know more about oneself.

The program's layout left us wanting more, since it is primarily text based and its Help file explained how the program functioned and not how to use it. Fortunately, navigation was so simple, we felt immediately comfortable even though we've never done more than read a fortune cookie. This was because of the basic information needed to begin. With our name and birthday … Read more

Talking Flash Cards aims to improve math, spelling, time-telling, and toddler basics with visual and audio tools. Its simple navigation and a variety of options allow this program to be a favorite of parents and kids.

We could see children really enjoying these cards, especially since they look exactly like physical flash cards, but tack on a digital element that can't be matched with traditional cards. The math cards gave us multiple-choice options, the spelling cards and time-telling function read the answers aloud for us, and the toddler learning tools felt more like a digital See-and-Say than a computer … Read more

Christmas is coming; in fact, it's always coming. Get in the spirit with a festive animated 3D screensaver that also counts down the days until Christmas with 3D Magic Christmas Toy Shop, which turns your desktop into a window on Santa's workshop. It plays music to a variety of animated activities, including a toy train, an elf on a rocking horse, a glittering Christmas tree, and a snowman dancing outside in the cold. You can easily alter the color balance to give, for example, a reddish or greenish glow, and change what falls from the sky. It displays … Read more

Workers in Japan have built a 60-foot statue of famous cartoon robot Gigantor in the city of Kobe. The statue is an actual-size replica of the hulking robot depicted in numerous manga and anime. It's known as Tetsujin 28 in Japan.

Towering over Kobe's Wakamatsu Park, the statue weighs 50 tons and cost some 135 million yen ($1.5 million) to build. It took about six weeks to erect.

The body parts were made earlier this summer. Here's a neat video showing manufacturing at a factory in Kishiwada City, Osaka.

Gigantor follows the construction of another 60-foot robot statue in Japan. An incredibly detailed, life-size replica of the fictional Gundam robot was built in a park in Tokyo in June, and it could shoot light from its body.

Designed as a permanent tourist attraction, the Gigantor monument was organized under the NPO Kobe Tetsujin Project to honor the work of the late cartoonist Mitsuteru Yokoyama, a Kobe native and the genius behind such manga classics as Sally the Witch and Giant Robo.

Gigantor is also a symbol of the rebirth of Kobe after it was devastated by the 1995 earthquake that killed more than 6,000 people. January 2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the tragedy. … Read more

Today's guest on The 404 Podcast is The Paper Raincoat, a local band of the "experimental rock ambition" genre, as Jeff calls it. Amber Rubarth and Alex Wong have both garnered musical recognition for their individual acts, but only recently came together to form The Paper Raincoat. The release of their first EP, Safe in the Sound, ushered in an international fan following and an impressive list of accomplishments, including the iTunes Indie Artist Spotlight. We're very excited to have them in the studio with us today, and they come bearing instruments for a live acoustic show!

As we talk to more bands, we're starting to understand the long process of dreaming, writing, playing, and touring with your music in the current music business scene. With outlets like Facebook, Myspace, Last.FM, and many more, artists can easily cast a wide net over an audience that would normally require a major label contract to reach. We talk with The Paper Raincoat about the naming of the band, their recording process, their fantastic DIY album art, and their upcoming tour.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, there are a million places to stream their music live, but the best thing you can do to show your support is to preorder a CD. One-hundred percent of the preorder money will go to printing the record, and you can pick between three packages, the highest of which lands you a limited edition CD, two signed posters, a T-shirt, and a custom USB wristband drive with a personalized video "thank you" and exclusive video content from the band. In the meantime, you can also follow the band on Twitter, attend their CD release party at Joe's Pub in NYC, and download their brand new song, "Right Angles."

Note: Gifsoup, as it turns out, is a violation of YouTube's terms of service, which state that user-submitted videos cannot be downloaded unless the author has allowed it and the download is taking place on YouTube.com, and not via its API.

In my book, animated GIFs are one step above glitter graphics in terms of junk trends of the Internet, but I'm a big fan of any tool that makes creating them easy and fun. Gifsoup is no exception--you just point it towards any YouTube video and it turns it into an animated GIF.

To do this, … Read more